The chefs (from left to right) are Arnold Poernomo, Yuda Bustara, Andrian Ishak, Ivan Saputro and Budi Lee.

Five chefs cook feverishly in front of an enthusiastic crowd, showing off an eclectic mix of cooking styles — from home cooking to molecular gastronomy.

The five — Andrian Ishak, Arnold Poernomo, Budi Lee, Ivan Suputro and Yuda Bustara — were locked in a battle of the young chefs that was being held as part of Pantry Magic’s fourth anniversary celebration.

The battle was fun to watch. It may have been a competitive event yet it was filled with laughter as contestants teased each other in a friendly manner.

The challenges came in many forms — from blind tasting (15 ingredients to taste), creating a signature scallop appetizer, Mise en Place (exhibiting their skills in chopping and beating white eggs), and replicating a dish, in this case, culinary expert William Wongso’s Pindang Woku Snapper.

The challenges were designed to test the chefs’ palates, knife and cooking skills as well as their creativity. Their works were then judged by William, chef/principal of Pantry Magic Robert Esser and restaurateur Wahjudi Raharja.

Judging by the applied techniques and chosen ingredients in creating the signature scallop appetizer, one could glimpse
a fascinating culinary scene, with each chef coming up with their own approach.

In a surprising twist, apart from the chefs’ own prepared ingredients, they also had to use one particular item provided by Pantry Magic, such as pink pepper, green cardamom or coriander, based on a lottery.

Andrian, who never received any specific education in molecular gastronomy, was the first chef incorporated the discipline into the Indonesian culinary scene. As expected, he applied the technique in cooking his scallops, without using fire.

“Naniura is a fish dish originating from Tapanuli [North Sumatra], cooked without fire, but using acidity, similar to ceviche from South America. As for ingredients,
I used ginger, turmeric, lemongrass, shallots and galangal,” he explained.

“Basically, my idea is to cook the scallops ala Naniura, but using a modern technique called vacuum marinating. In this process, I inserted the scallops into a cream whipper, together with salt and lemon juice. The acidity of the lemon juice will speed up the ‘cooking’ process.”

After the scallops were “cooked”, he then used liquid nitrogen to freeze the scallops before he grated the frozen “cooked” scallops onto the salad.

In the battle, Yuda wanted to show that people could make simple yet delicious homemade food, like his scallop dish, in the comfort of their homes.

“The cooking technique is simple, as we only had 15 minutes to cook. I seared the scallops with my brown butter beurre blanc then added roasted sliced almonds and capers for texture. My dish is creamy, a little bit acidic and with a rich texture,” Yuda said.

Arnold made a dashi broth with seaweed, garlic flowers and caviar, and he used hondashi, katshubusi, konbu, soy as well as mirin as the ingredients.

“What I tried to get out of this is the umami flavor of the broth that will bring out the flavor of the scallops,” he said, adding that to season the scallops, he replaced regular black pepper with Sichuan pepper, which he got from the lottery.

“To garnish my dish, I used seaweed and caviar with garlic flowers. I pan seared the scallops and poured the hot broth on top of them.”

Ivan pan seared his scallops, and topped them with a sambal embe crust. “Actually, the crust is made of embe [fried shallots], chilies, kafir lime leaves, juice and butter, so the scallops had the perfect crispy texture on the outside. On top of my dish, I put dried seaweed salad and used red curry as its sauce or dressing. To underline my dish, I used thinly-sliced avocado carpaccio,” explained Ivan.

Budi has a penchant for fruits and spices and says that he cooks from the heart, without any written recipes.

“I used kiwi, orange Sunkist, lemon, almonds, mint leaves, vinaigrette and also coriander, which I got from the lottery. I cut the fresh fruits proportionally, as size does matter to balance the flavor in the mouth,” said Budi.

To make the vinaigrette that added flavor to his scallops, he mixed orange reduction, lemon juice and olive oil, then pan seared his scallops with olive oil and basted with butter plus lemon juice.

He then garnished his dish with grated lemon, orange zest and also mint leaves that were sliced into chiffonade (delicate, very thin, hair-like strips).

At the end of the day, Arnold was named “Young Chef 2012”.

Arnold said that unlike most chefs in town, he did not have a formal culinary education although he realized that culinary school or a college degree in culinary studies was necessary for those who wanted to work as professional chefs.

“I learned everything from my working experience as well as from my mother. Both my mother and my grandmother are chefs, so cooking is in our blood,” says Arnold.

Judging by how the chefs replicated his Pindang Woku Snapper, William noted that the young chefs should brush up their knowledge on traditional Indonesian cuisine, including its ingredients.

“They have quite a high cooking standard as young professionals and their cooking style is Western-based, which is very good,” he said.

However, he noticed the chefs were unfamiliar with elements of Indonesian flavor. “These chefs need to understand the rich diversity of Indonesian cuisine, which varies from region to region. Indonesian cooking is a very natural cooking, but the way they cooked made it looked like a heavy-duty cooking,” William said.

The five competing chefs shared one thing in common — they agreed whole-heartedly that the culinary scene was growing, phenomenally.

Being a chef is a desirable, even glamorous job, thanks largely to the popularity of food shows on television and celebrity chefs who inspire youngsters to work in the kitchen.

However, they also noted that being a professional chef was a demanding job — requiring one to have strong drive and passion to work between 12 and 18 hours a day in the kitchen.

“Being a chef is a tough job, I didn’t have a social life when I worked in Melbourne. My life revolved around food. Eventually, I got sick due to exhaustion and resigned from my job,” said Yuda.

His passion, however, has kept him in culinary work, the difference being that as a food stylist, private chef and cooking instructor, Yuda no longer has to work in a hotel like he did before.

For Budi, being a chef is a true calling.

“Seeing people smiles when eating my food is priceless,” said Budi, a statement that is shared by other chefs who cook for the love of food, not just for the glamorous side of being a chef.

— Photos courtesy of Pantry Magic

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